


Fables From The Flipside

by WhyAreYouLaughing



Series: A Tale of Liars [6]
Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Character Study, Dead People
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-02-23 20:22:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13197846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyAreYouLaughing/pseuds/WhyAreYouLaughing
Summary: A collection of character studies centering around the dead.Chapter 1 - The Life That Was A Lie (Noel Kahn)Chapter 2 - It's As Different As Black And White (Charlotte Drake)





	1. The Life That Was A Lie

_The last mistake, the choice I made_  
_Staring in the mirror with myself to blame._  
_Sometimes I'm afraid of the thoughts inside._  
_Nowhere to hide inside my mind._

_-Hope of Morning by Icon for Hire._

\---------------

Noel Kahn knew all about making deals, he has been doing so with the society of Rosewood High since he was just a freshman.

Sometimes, very rarely, it'll be said out loud. Some kid who finally snapped, mustering the amount of courage to negotiate with the prince of this school.

(Eric was a senior at the time, still the king. Still someone he looked up to, though even that was quickly dying.)

Mostly, it's silent and unspoken. Bargains that benefited both of them, but neither wanted to look weak enough to admit verbally that they could use the help.

People know how to serve their own needs like nothing else. Noel is no exception.

(Being one of a demented group is better then being by yourself. Sharks pray on the lonely.)

(The Rosewood Sharks also follow this code of ethics. Like the animals they are.)

He was raised with other's expectations, born to be the expected apple of their eye. A party animal with no morals.

Let people have what they want because being wanted is the closest thing to being loved in this place.

(Those damn human desires will be the end of him.)

Be yourself, unless you're not craved, then be someone else. That may as well be these students' motto.

That's okay though, because Noel is used to that by now. They all are, or they will be soon anyways.

(Isn't it a beautiful thing? The youth slowly being corrupted by each other and their elders.)

It's not so bad, he says to himself. He doesn't mind the taste of whiskey and the girls from his class.

That's the truth, but there is something a bit wrong with that sentence. Either way, a shiny grin hides it.

(It's all the same to him. The burning sensation of alcohol, the smell of sex.)

Guys like him aren't allowed to think about his lifestyle. Guys like him aren't allowed to have doubts.

He was never really good at doing what he was suppose to. He always tried, God he tried, but it was never enough.

(A failure, they all are. Spencer, Aria. Hanna, Emily. Him. Different from the rest in the worse ways.)

(Took him years to realize that Alison was on that list too.)

He wasn't like Eric, he didn't thrive doing all this, or perhaps his brother was a better actor than Noel gave him credit for.

Demons might have souls, no one just thinks to ask. That's too dangerous, yet too simple.

(Actors be actors, and metaphors be metaphors. They're better then the blunt truth.)

Alison, Noel figures, is one of those demons. (So is he) Maybe, just maybe, there is a bit more then a hole were her heart is.

Or maybe there's nothing but a black gapping space. No one will ever know, will they?

(Her salvation was Emily Fields. His salvation could of been Aria Montgomery. Even if they were just friends.)

(Selfish, selfish. Both of them, but Emily was just as unlucky as them, and the world never gave her another chance other then Alison.)

Noel thinks he recognizes something in those blue Siren-like eyes. That weariness.

She's just as done with these games as he is, and in just as much denial too.

(The world is safer without them, it's true but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.)

Then soon later, Rosewood High is alive and buzzing with the news of the blonde's disappearance.

Noel had laughed when he heard, if Alison was like him, they weren't meant to be killed off that easily.

(Her time wasn't up, and it would run much longer then his.)

Sure enough, a year later he gets a message from the undead. Well, it was more of an unknown number signed with her name.

(A time, a place. That was it, and Noel went.)

\---------------------

Noel didn't get that many choices in his life. (Maybe that explains why he always made the wrong one.)

He didn't want to be a heartless fuckboy.

(He didn't have a choice.)

He didn't want to lie for Alison

(He didn't have a choice.)

He didn't want to be part of the  
dollhouse.

(He didn't have a choice)

He didn't want to be in the blind institution.

(He didn't have a choice.)

He didn't want to die.

(He didn't have a choice.)

Sometimes you don't get to decide what your part in the story is.


	2. It's As Different As Black And White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlotte doesn't really mind the pitch black. It hides the fact that eveything is a mess.
> 
> (It'll allow everyone to slowly destroy themselves in the silence.)
> 
> She also doesn't mind the blinding white. It distracts enough so no one notices the cracks.
> 
> (It helps someone ignore the fact that the damage that is occurring is irreversible)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can say that this can relate to THE LIFE OF (AND TRAGEDY THAT IS) ALEX DRAKE. Not even close to enough to make reading that mandatory though.
> 
> Thanks for the reviews and kuddos, it really makes my day!

_I'm clearer in the darkness_  
_And that's never going to change_  
_Moonlight streaming in the windows_  
_Silence sounding like a song, you_  
_Can't stop the voices in my head, so_  
_I prefer to stand alone. -Bones by Aviators._

\--------------

Charlotte Drake doesn't see the difference between white and black. She never did.

They may be polar opposites, but they're both outcasts of their fellow hues. Never so estranged from each other, yet never so similar.

Both colors just want to fit in. They just have very different means of trying to do so.

(Neither way ever works.)

White tries to be like the others, and it (you) succeeds for a bit. Then your true, pardon the pun, colors are shown.

Everyone abandons you like your feelings weren't real. Just because of the demons underneath your skin.

Like you wouldn't die for each and every one of them. Like you didn't see them as family.

(Like they didn't care about you such a long time ago too.)

Black doesn't even try to belong were it doesn't. It hurts, it lies, just like the world has done to them.

Turn your back on everyone else before they do it to you. Be the bad guy before they make you one.

Then that's who you become, but at least you don't deceive yourself whenever you look in the mirror.

(What you see is what you get; a monster.)

At the end, the two colors are left with only one another to care about. There is no chance of betrayal when there is no better option.

Black is cursed to kill, and white is cursed to drive insane. A pair made in hell, but so is this world, so it's all okay.

Now to relate this to her own world. Black and white, good and evil. They tend to corrupt themselves.

(The dammed are still dammed and the hopeful are still hopeful, just a little less.)

Charlotte would say that she's black. The color deprived of light. The person who doesn't have it in their soul to be innocent.

She would connect Archer to white. Too pure. Too unique to ever be understood. Another person who's nature will be the end of them.

Eventually she would link Alex (and Spencer) to grey. Adaptable. An effect of someone else's choice. She doesn't lack the ability to act like both colors.

(Even after all this time, Charlotte doesn't know what shade Wren would be.)

Then they all met each other, and those beautifully solid colors clashed and crashed until they made something new.

Perhaps that was the end for them, or perhaps it was the first chance they had to be really alive.

They'd all perish at the finish line, no matter what, but maybe they'll be free in the mean time.

(That's all Charlotte can really ask for after years of being locked up in Radley.)

If she could go back to the past with the option to change one thing, what happens next would be it.

Charlotte Drake, Charles DiLaurentis, CeCe Drake, whatever one wants to call her, ruins it all.

Not just for her. No, there's enough of that black in Charlotte to wreck it all for the only ones that cared.

(Now the only survivor of her mistake is a trapped girl named Alex Drake. Her sister.)

Sometimes she wished that she knew that Spencer was her half sister. It might of changed nothing, but it might of changed everything.

Charlotte can't stand the Hastings family, but everything happened before Spencer was born.

Spencer and Alex were mistakes. So is Charlotte. Archer was a bastard child. Wren was the consequence of someone forcing themselves on another.

(They left Spencer alone though, to the others, and Charlotte honesty does regret that.)

Birds of a feather shall die together. Shall be driven insane by each other. They shall be killed by each other.

Alex and Archer lost who they were in the wake of her death. Wren lost his life trying to save Alex from herself.

Archer lost his life trying to avenge her. A futile and worthless mission since she was not a good person.

(Charlotte thinks that Archer realized he went too far as he stared into headlights.

She supposes that Alex hasn't figured out yet. Charlotte hopes that it doesn't take Alex's death for the twin to understand.)

So what does one get when they mix the foursome's present, past and potential future together?

Black.


End file.
